The Challenge of Criminal Justice Reform

In this paper, I propose a framework for the future direction of criminal justice reform. The punishing effects of American criminal justice have become pervasive in communities challenged by racial inequality, poverty, and violence. Responding to violence in contexts of racial inequality and poverty is the fundamental challenge for reform. To meet this challenge, we must develop socially-integrative responses to violence that draw victims and offenders back into the social compact. Such responses will help restore social bonds and build pathways of opportunity for communities contending with poverty and racial exclusion

Incarceration and support for children in fragile families

High US incarceration rates have motivated recent research on the negative effects of imprisonment on later employment, earnings, and family relationships. Given the high rates of fatherhood among men in jails and prisons, a large number of children are placed at considerable risk when a parent is incarcerated. This paper examines one dimension of the economic risk faced by children of incarcerated fathers: the reduction in the financial support that they receive. We use a population-based sample of urban children to examine the effects of incarceration on this support. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal regression models indicate that men with incarceration histories are significantly less likely to contribute to their families and those that do contribute provide significantly less. These negative effects of incarceration on fathers' financial support are due not only to diminished performance in the labor market by formerly incarcerated men, but also to their increased likelihood to live apart from their children. Men contribute far less through child support (formal or informal) than they do when they share their earnings within their household, suggesting that the destabilizing effects of incarceration on family relationships place children at significant economic disadvantage

Community-Based Responses to Justice-Involved Young Adults

In this paper, we propose a different kind of criminal justice for young men and women. We propose new institutional methods and processes for young adult justice, for those ages 18 to 24, that can meet the realities of life for today’s disadvantaged youth involved in crime and the criminal justice system. What we envision seeks to extend the reach of the juvenile court while also using it as a basis for a new system that reflects a modern understanding of the transition into adulthood. Our central recommendation is that the age of juvenile court jurisdiction be raised to at least 21 years old1 with additional, gradually diminishing protections for young adults up to age 24 or 25. Such a system recognizes the diminished capacity for responsible decision-making in youth while harnessing the opportunities presented by their ability to grow, adapt and change. Additionally, such a system would recognize the diminished opportunities and greater demands that now face young adults, particularly in the disadvantaged communities that supply the adult correctional system

"The rising of the new sun": time within Sindiwe Magona's Mother to mother and Zakes Mda's Heart of redness

This thesis takes a postcolonial perspective; however, it also utilizes theories on time and culture from an anthropological foundation. To fully understand how Magona and Mda present time, I first examine the nature of time in the Xhosa culture. This exploration includes the beliefs and traditional perspectives concerning cyclical time versus linear progression. I present research the perspectives time, death, and memory, and reveal how Mda and Magona include elements of the Xhosa time concousousness in their novels. To highlight the intricacies of cyclical time in Mother to Mother and Heart of Redness, I explore the development of the traditional concepts of western time. While I utilize research revealing specific principles of time as a unit of measurement, I will utilize explorations into the psychological nature of time; while these theories are primarily used to explore human consciousness, I wish to show how Mda and Magona blur the definition of past and present within the novels. In blurring the past and the present, Mda and Magona mirror the action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and speak reconciliation to the new South Africa; lastly, I explore the ways in which Mother to Mother and Heart of Redness exemplify Benedict Anderson‘s concept of an imagined community

Thinking About Emerging Adults and Violent Crime

In response to fears of an unrelenting crime wave, dramatic changes to sentencing policy, particularly for violent offenders, occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, more than half of state prisoners are serving time for a violent offense. Increases in the severity of criminal justice sanctions (e.g., decision to prosecute, reclassification of charges, use of incarceration, and lengthening prison sentences) for those convicted of violent offenses has fueled mass incarceration. Despite major reductions of crime, including violence, over the past two decades, an intense focus on violent offenders as distinct and different endures. This brief summarizes research on violent criminal behavior over the life course. We focus special attention on emerging adults because they have the highest rates of both violent offending and violent victimization. First, drawing on a large body of longitudinal research on crime, we present the known ‘facts’ about violence. Note that this research literature uses criminal justice records of those officially sanctioned as well as self-reports of offending and victimization. Second, we discuss the experiences and consequences of living with violence. Third, we conclude with policy recommendations for responding to violent crime

Holding her own : a novel

This creative thesis comprises the first three chapters of Holding Her Own, a novel whichexplores the career of a young warrant officer who trains on the AH-64 Apache helicopter twoyears after the United States Army lifts the ban on women in combat aviation. Seventeen-yearoldJean Pennegarde leaves her hometown in the foothills of the Rocky mountains after the towngossip spots her outside Planned Parenthood where she is trying to obtain contraception for heryounger sister, Rena. Saving her sister’s reputation is the first in a series of heroic acts that donot earn Jean the inner satisfaction she craves, and even as she proves herself competent amongan elite group of pilots, she finds that the better she gets at war, the further she drifts from peace.When Tripp Trombetta gets her pregnant on the flight out of Somalia, she faces a personal crisisthat rivals any humanitarian disaster she has yet to encounter--caring for her infant daughter.With her estranged sister refusing to disappear into her past, a man she considers a sperm donordemanding to marry her, and an insatiable baby screaming at her all through the night, Jean isgoing to have to find that which is harder than strength--forgiveness. She will either learn to livewith her mistakes and embrace her limitations or she will destroy the life and love she hascreated

Reconsidering the "Violent Offender"

Demonizing people as violent has perpetuated policies rooted in fear rather than fact. In this paper, we break from the tradition of punitiveness toward people convicted of violent offenses and argue that the violent offender label breaches the principle of parsimony, distorts proportionality, and fails as a predictive tool for future violent behavior. The label disproportionately affects people of color—black and Hispanic people comprise larger shares of people incarcerated for violent offenses in state prisons than white people. In short, the violent offender label offers little to criminal justice policy. Instead, justice policy should focus on those who actually commit violence, mitigate responses based on the experience of violent victimization, and discount the violent offender label as predictive of future violence

Structure of FcRY, an avian immunoglobulin receptor related to mammalian mannose receptors, and its complex with IgY

Fc receptors transport maternal antibodies across epithelial cell barriers to passively immunize newborns. FcRY, the functional counterpart of mammalian FcRn (a major histocompatibility complex homolog), transfers IgY across the avian yolk sac, and represents a new class of Fc receptor related to the mammalian mannose receptor family. FcRY and FcRn bind immunoglobulins at pH ≤6.5, but not pH ≥7, allowing receptor–ligand association inside intracellular vesicles and release at the pH of blood. We obtained structures of monomeric and dimeric FcRY and an FcRY–IgY complex and explored FcRY's pH-dependent binding mechanism using electron cryomicroscopy (cryoEM) and small-angle X-ray scattering. The cryoEM structure of FcRY at pH 6 revealed a compact double-ring “head,” in which the N-terminal cysteine-rich and fibronectin II domains were folded back to contact C-type lectin-like domains 1–6, and a “tail” comprising C-type lectin-like domains 7–8. Conformational changes at pH 8 created a more elongated structure that cannot bind IgY. CryoEM reconstruction of FcRY dimers at pH 6 and small-angle X-ray scattering analysis at both pH values confirmed both structures. The cryoEM structure of the FcRY–IgY revealed symmetric binding of two FcRY heads to the dimeric FcY, each head contacting the CH4 domain of one FcY chain. FcRY shares structural properties with mannose receptor family members, including a head and tail domain organization, multimerization that may regulate ligand binding, and pH-dependent conformational changes. Our results facilitate understanding of immune recognition by the structurally related mannose receptor family and comparison of diverse methods of Ig transport across evolution

Rydberg spectra of singlet metastable states of O2

International audienceUpdated analyses of several singlet Rydberg states of O2 via spectra involving excitation from the metastable a1Δg and b1Σg+ states are presented. The high quality FT-VUV spectra available from the DESIRS beamline at the SOLEIL synchrotron gives significantly improved spectra compared to previous work. The Rydberg states analysed include 3pπ1Σu+ v=0-4, 3pσ1Πu v=0-2, 3pπ1u v=0-2, 4pπ1Σu+ v=0-1, 4pσ1Πu v=0 and 4pπ1Δu v=0. This is complemented by high quality ab initio calculations on the 1Σu+ and 1u Rydberg states to determine the transition moments providing the first quantitative cross sections for Rydberg – b1Σg+ transitions. These are validated against the experimental data. The results suggest the most promising candidate for determining b1Σg+ number density is likely to be the 1-0 band of the 4pπ1Σu+ – b1Σg+ transition at 131.3 nm